Railroad-ticket



Patented Oct. 2, 1883.

J. W. WOMELDORPF.

RAILROAD TICKET.

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RAILROAD-TICKET.

SPECIFICATION forming part of Letters Patent No. 286,101, dated October 2, 1i 83. Application filed March 21, Isl-3. (No modul.)-

To all whom t may concern.-

3e it kn own that I, Jani-1s W. WoMnLno Rrr, a citizen of the United States, residing at Middleport, in the county of Meigs and State oi.' Ohio, have invented a new and useful Improvement in Railroad-Tickets, of which the following is a specification.

My invention relates to that class of rail roadtiekets known as through or eo11pon'tick ets; and it has for its object to provide means whereby asingle through-ticket maybe adapted to pass one or more persons from one station to another over any one of a number of routes connecting the two stations. To this end my invention consists in the construction and combination of parts forming a railroadticket, hereinafter described and clai1ned,.rcference being had to the accompanying drawings, in which- Figure l represents a four-route ticket, showing my invention; and Fig. 2, a modiiicatioir of the saine.

This ticket is adapted to pass one or more persons from Middleport to Chicago over either one of the four routesvmarked l 2 3 4. on the agents stub A. The ticket is perforated, as usual, to be torn off at cross-lines a, b, and c, the line a separating the agent s stub from the ticket, and line b separating the iirst ticket from. the rest, &c. The section E of the agents stub A is divided into four spaces marked l 2 3 et, respectively indicating routes thus num-` bered, vand these numbers are referred to by the agent in his connnunications with railwayofieials in speaking or writing of said routes. These spaces may be made across the ticket, as in Fig. l, or along the ticket, as in Fig. 2, and each of the coupons is divided into eX- actly similar spaces, so that when the ticket is folded at the lines c and Z each space of the coupons will be directly under the corresponding space on the stub, so that if a certain space ofthe stub be punched when the ticket is thus folded its corresponding space on each coupon will also be punched. This feature is not broadly n ew 5 but I think the following is new: Each numbered space on the stub has printed on it the names or initials of all the roads forming one route between Middleport and Chicago, also thelname of the junction of each road with the next in line of the route. The first coupon, B, has printed on it in the respective spaces the names or initials of the first roads of all the routes andthe naines of their termini on the route, and the second' coupon, C, is similarly marked with the ysecond roadsv of each route, &c.

The application is as follows: Suppose a traveler applies at the Middleport station for a ticket for Chicago. The agent takes one of these tickets. from the hook and informs the traveler that there are four roads over either of whiclihe can go to Chicago. .After hearing the routes named he elects, for example, to go by Fostoria, which is route 3. The agent'thcn folds the ticket, stamps throughit at routes l., 2, and 4i., canceling them, and tears off the stub at a, thus preserving a memorandum of the ticket sold and the route over which it is used-to wit, the C., H. V., and .D. to Fostoria, andthe B. and O. from Fostoria to Chicago. The ticket is first presented on the way from. Middleport to Fostori a on the Columbus, Hocking Valley, and Toledo road, and the conductor of that road removes coupon B, which is printed at one end, e, showing that it was issued by his road-the C. ,H/ also over the B. and O. The next coupon will be taken up by the B. and O. road, showing that it carried'a passenger for the C. H. V., and T. road from Fostoria to Chicago. In the same manner either one of the other routes might have been selected at first bythe traveler, and the same ticket, differently canceled, would have passed him. At the same time the stub and coupons, all canceled alike, preserve a complete record of the transaction for final settlement between the different roads ofthe rente. One ticket may bc thus printed to represent any number of routes, and if any route had a less number of roads than the others a corresponding number of coupons would be left blank .in its line to be torn oif by the agent who sold it.

Some of the advantages of this invention a're that a ticket-agent, without any effort of mem.- ory or previous experience, may at once answer the travelers questions to routes to any point and the junctions or changes by merely examining the stub of a ticket covering all routes to that point, whereas. by the old method he would have to examine as many tickets as there were routes in order to give and T.-t0 pass IOO the saine information, or, what is more co1nmon, refer to a railway-guide for information; secondly, one union-ticket would bev printed covering severalroutes, where formerly a separate ticket was printed for each route. rlhis y ticket may be/used as an addition to some forms A IQ of tickets now in use-as, for instance, to the one shown in Patent No. 204,174. 4

I am aware that there are tickets somewhat like mine in use in which the agents stub and each succeeding coupon indicate the place of departure and destination and road or roads over which the passenger will travel; but the succeedingcoupons in my ticket do not necessarily show either the place of first departure or the place of final destination, 'and l. do not claim the same; but

l. A railroad coupon-ticket having on the agents stub separate spaces, each space indicating a different route between two points or stations, in combination with coupons adapted to be folded beneath said-stub, each coupon having two or more routes marked on it corresponding to those on the agents stub, as shown and described, whereby one ticket is adapted for use over either one of two ormore routes. I 2. The stub A, having two or more spaces, 1 2,' Snc., in which are marked the names or initials of the roads forming different routes between two stations, and the names of stations whereI said roads join, in combination with one or more coupons, B C, having spaces corresponding to the stub, each coupon being marked for one road, with its terminal stations of each of said routes7 and the consecutive coupons representing the roads of all the routes in their consecutive order from the startingpoint, as shown and described.

JAMES wf. woMELDoRFF.

Witnesses:

ROBT. E. PHILLIPS, C. DowNiNG. 

